


like a river flows

by cheschi



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: F/M, Probably Historically Inaccurate, Slow Burn, tbh what am i even doing writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-08 07:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14100720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheschi/pseuds/cheschi
Summary: For all the interviews and slip-ups and grand romantic declarations, there's more than enough that goes unsaid between them throughout the years.





	like a river flows

**Author's Note:**

> i've only ever read one rpf fic and i've never touched rpf since but somehow these two got me here asdjasodjasd this jumps throughout the years bc lmao do i know how to write anything else
> 
> shoutout to the vm crackheads gc

For the first eight months that they skate together and become girlfriend and boyfriend at the ages of 7 and 9 respectively, they don't talk on the ice. Or off the ice, either. They skate around each other in circles, hands brushing but never quite touching, and they avoid eye contact at all costs. They ease themselves into the handholding slowly, but as soon as the music stops, they jerk apart and skate on opposite sides of the rink. Scott doesn't believe in cooties, but he doesn't believe in holding Tessa's hand for prolonged periods of time either. His brother chuckles, tells him that he'll grow into it eventually. 

Scott hears his aunt's friend murmur something to her. 

"If that's what the rest of their careers are going to look like, you might want to consider an intervention."

His aunt sighs. "They're kids, Sharon. Give them time."

 

 

She remembers the wedding.

Tessa is on the way out of the house when she catches the headline on the news on television about the Olympic wedding, sees the faces of Dubreuil and Lauzon flash on the screen before rushing out to get to the rink.

It's a brief, hazy memory when she thinks about it now, overshadowed by the weather that day and aching limbs and hours worth of practice and Marina breathing down their necks about their new routine, but she remembers it for some reason when she thinks about Michigan.  

Maybe what strikes Tessa the most is how _happy_ they look.

Marie-France is smiling at Patrice in her wedding dress like it's the most natural thing in the world and they're spinning in other's arms, not that different from when they were on the ice, and they look like there's no place they'd rather be.

Madison's the one to bring it up after practice. They do this sometimes—idle locker room chat, in between warm ups and lacing ups skates and stretching after practice. They're friends, but they rarely talk off the ice. Sometimes Tessa wishes they would. 

"Do you ever think, you know, that that could be you?" 

Tessa's first instinct is to spit out her water, to brush it off because she hasn't thought about something as absurd as marrying her best friend since she was a kid. The first thing that comes to mind, though, is the image of Scott spinning her as they practice their free dance and Umbrellas of Cherbourg playing above them like pattering rain.  

Instead, she clears her throat and looks at Madison. "Do you ever think about that being you and Greg?"

Madison's eyes go wide for a second and then she starts laughing, hitting her arm lightly. "Good one, Tessa. Maybe that'll happen the day you and Scott do."

She laughs, but something in her feels unsettled for a while until she brushes off the silly idea. The Olympics are in two years and there isn't time now to indulge in those thoughts, far-fetched as they may be. 

 

 

"So you and Tessa," Matt's eyes narrow. "Never?"

"Never," Scott says. "Unless you count the time when we were _kids_."

Matt whistles, "Your loss, man." 

Scott has the faintest instinct to punch him, but instead he forces the smile on his face, because he doesn't have anything to say. They're at some party at the house of a friend of a friend. High school is ending in a few months, but it feels like it's already been over for a while. 

It's been years of people asking the same question: are they or aren't they? Ever since they hit puberty and their lifts and spins started to look like they meant more than just performances, they've been getting the same thing thrown their way for a long time. Scott doesn't know what they are, but whatever it is, it feels too big to be put into a box and too complicated to put a label on. 

It's the price they have to pay for the sport, he knows, but it doesn't make him wanna punch any of his friends any less when they ask about Tessa. 

"So, uh, you wouldn't mind then if I asked her out?" Matt's eyes are darting around nervously and he's playing with his cup. 

Scott clenches his jaw and turns to his friend and tries for nonchalance. 

"Ask her yourself." Scott says instead. Tessa is his best friend, but it's not his call to say who she can and can't date. 

He catches them in the corner of his eye standing somewhere near the punch table. Scott takes a bigger sip of his drink. He hasn't know Matt long but he's a decent guy, and if he tries anything, Scott is going to pummel him through a wall. 

Tessa's leaning against the door when he approaches her, hands shoved in his pockets. 

Scott sees her sheepish grin, sees her mutter that she's not really looking to date right now. Matt nods, tells her that he'll see her around and gives her a fistbump. 

A sense of relief floods him for some unknown reason, and he watches Matt walk away from Tessa. He does the the thing he's supposed to: he throws his arm around Matt's shoulder, listens to him sulk for 10 minutes before Matt moves on to talking about one of his neighbors, and he sees Tessa in his peripheral talking to one of her friends. She catches his eye and she smiles at him from behind her cup, and something warms in him and pulls at him at the same time. 

He doesn't know what he would've done if she'd said yes. 

 

 

Tessa finds about the training from Marina of all people.

In the days after her surgery, Scott is a fixture at her bedside and he's there almost every time she wakes up and stays up until the nurses have to get him to leave because it's past visiting hours. He always manages to stay an extra half hour, though, because even if he doesn't play the gold medalist Olympian card, all the nurses like him anyway, and she can't blame them. He spends hours there at a time and she's glad for the company and that he can still make her laugh when she's on painkillers and has a splitting headache.

They don't talk about skating.

When she tries to bring it up, Scott always tries to divert the topic. It's stupid, when she thinks about it again, how they're dancing around the issue but neither of them wants to be the first one to broach the topic. She wants to snap at Scott and ask why they can't just talk about skating, why they can't talk about the fact that this is a big thing for both of them, that even if the doctors said she could go back after six months, there's always the chance that it won't work out and that one bad fall on the ice is all it takes. Scott doesn't say anything, so neither does she. Two can play at that game. 

It doesn't make sense until Marina visits her a week after the surgery.

"I told him," she breathes. "To practice with another person. Doesn't even have to compete with other girl. But Scott wants to train with stupid _brooms_ and _flour sacks_. So hardheaded."

Marina throws her hands up in frustration and starts to rattle off profanities in her native Russian tongue but Tessa isn't bothering to listen.

On any other day, she'd have the sense to be at least insulted at Marina's treatment of the situation and the underlying suggestion to replace her, but she's more hooked on what their coach mentioned about Scott.

When she returns to the ice eight months later, takes her first steps on the frozen ground, she doesn't say anything when she sees him, only puts her mitten over his and closes her hand over his.

 

 

She'd be lying if she said she isn't surprised the minute Scott plops down next to her the week after the phone call where he broke up with her. The funny thing, though, is that he sits closer to her than he ever did in the two weeks that they were dating. Their elbows are almost touching now, here on the bench at the rink.

He pulls out a Ziploc from his bag with two halves of a peanut butter sandwich and he offers her one.

"Thanks," she says, and then points at the other Ziploc filled with Frosted Flakes. "My mom and I saw Tony the Tiger in person one time."

"I hate mascots," Scott says, wrinkling his nose.

She giggles because it's funny, even then, because it's the most they've ever talked since holding hands on the ice and that Scott, the boy every girl that she's friends with has a crush on, is afraid of _mascots_.

"Are you afraid of them?"

" _No_ ," he says gruffly, ears turning pink, but reaches out and offers her the cereal anyway.

She doesn't bring up mascots again, and he doesn't say anything about it, only goes to her a week after that and gives her a picture.

At the back it's written, _Tessa,_ _Here is my picture. To the best partner ever._ _Love, Scott._  

**Author's Note:**

> pls forgive any errors that conflict with real life events/timelines lmao i sadly didn't have the time to research for accuracy
> 
> tbh there wasn't an actual point to this fic but if you leave a review i will love you until the end of time


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